Contrast
by tribute.potterhead.haribos
Summary: Haymitch thinking about Katniss and Prim and how the war affected them both. In the days where Greasy Sae and her granddaughter came and nothing else happened.
1. Before

I remember seeing her before the Games. Before everything- before her dad died. She was so happy, and carefree. She was always smiling, or singing, or just being happy. I can't stand seeing her now- because of the contrast between the sweet, happy little girl, and the depressed, lonely young woman.

Now she's different. Prim was the only light left in her life. Now Prim's gone and Katniss has been left alone in the dark. Peeta can't be near her because of the hijacking, Effie wanted to stay in the Capitol, and I'm just an old drunk.

I can't stand seeing her now because she reminds me of me, just after my own Games. She looks so hopeless, and dead. It's like it just hit her that she's killed people. She needs time to grieve. Not just grieve her sister, and Finnick and those people, but to grieve for a normal life.

She needs to grieve for her childhood and her father, because God knows she was so busy trying to hold her broken family together that she didn't have a chance to have fun being a kid.

She will always have the scars, and the memories. Once you've won the Games, by the Capitol's standard, the real Games begin. And those Games are so much worse because the only escape is death. No way out, no chance of winning- just death.

Getting into a drunken stupor doesn't help, and neither does sleep, because it all comes back to life in your dreams. You see the arena in the ordinary things around you: the trees, the sky, the flowers. Everything, can take you back there, because there's no way out. No pure dumb luck or cheat sheet to help you out now.


	2. Family

I don't understand how she stayed sane through all of this, but when her family was destroyed she died inside. The real damage of a war isn't counted in the number of bodies, or how many buildings need rebuilding. The war is how much a person can take before they snap: how much someone can handle before they give up. Before they stop fighting. War is about striking your opponent where it hurts, because everyone has a weak point in their armour.

What amazed a lot of people was that Katniss wasn't doing for herself. She could've had her leg cut off, and only worry about Prim suffering because of it. She was so selfless, but never saw it, she always thought that she was selfish. Prim was the girls sun, and Katniss, to the best of her abilities, catered to Prim's every need.

But Prim was growing up; she was being trained to become a doctor. She didn't need Katniss anymore- she could hold her own. Katniss had fallen apart after she died, even though, in 13, Katniss wasn't as close to her, she still knew that Prim could find her if she wanted something.

I think that it was the sense of familiarity that Prim and Buttercup brought her that made her function. When Prim was there, she always put her before anything. Like when _Peeta_ warned us about the bombs, I had never seen Katniss so wild before. When she was _screaming_ at the person at the door to keep it open, just for a few more minutes. She was desperate for Prim to show up safe.

And Prim was so mature for her age, and so kind. She didn't want to be a doctor because that's was her Mum said, or because it had a good pay, but because she could help people. She was like a little angel, all of District 12 thought so. She took after her mother, but idolised her sister.

When kids go to the Games, everyone sympathises with the kid, not the family. It must have been hard for Prim to watch both of Katniss's Games because there was the older sister who had always seemed so strong. But she wasn't the strongest, and she wasn't strong enough. Prim had to watch her sister when she was at her weakest time, her most desperate hour, but everyone thought Katniss to have had shard time.

Prim was stronger than most: she saw her sister going through all that, and the consequences of surviving, and would still do it if it meant that Katniss didn't have to. Those kind of people are the best because once you've gained their love, you have it forever.

The family's have it the worst, because they can't bear to watch, but can't look away. The families will cry together and hope and pray to whatever God there is up there that next year their kids will be safe. If you can survive the Games, and your family can look you in the eye you're lucky. Because sometimes, some people will look at you and instead of seeing _you, _they see your first kill; they see how you killed that person, and how you reacted, and how _they_reacted.

And when the person that you've killed for, that you did all that for, is the person seeing you killing and you trying to destroy other lives, it hurts.


End file.
